matrician

plural matricians

1. A female patrician; an upper class matriarch

   Instead, Bettina traces her lineage through "Foremother," whose oil portrait watches over the homestead; she is described as a "matrician" who "in life as in the portrait, . . . approved of nothing"

   1992, Barbara Jean Monroe, Mother wit: American women's literary humor

   2 more examples

   In the present state of society we need not go far to find many a man who would give all the waltzes and polkas that a matrician genius ever invented, and throw all the new-fangled flourishes upon piano and guitar into the bargain, for healthful breakfasts [...]

   1854, The Model Housekeeper, The Friend, page 358

   In essence, Wisdom's home serves as a multivalent symbol that illuminates her indispensable value as well as her noble status; it identifies Wisdom's fundamental role in the establishment of a household and depicts her as a wealthy matrician

   2011, Christopher B. Ansberry, Be Wise, My Son, and Make My Heart Glad: An Exploration of the Courtly Nature of the Book of Proverbs, Walter de Gruyter, →ISBN, page 62

2. anthropologyA group or clan claiming matrilineal descent from a (usually legendary) female ancestor

   In order of rank, the matricians were the pig, dog, snake, and iguana clans.

   1982, Ron E. Roberts, Douglas E. Brintnall, Reinventing inequality: an inquiry into society and stratification, Schenkman Books

   2 more examples

   The society consists of a number of matricians which, as each is exogamous, are linked together by ties of kinship and marriage. This sort of society is very common throughout the islands off the mainland.

   1967, New Guinea and Australia, the Pacific and South-east Asia

   However, the household was controlled by its senior women; because of the residence pattern, the men were unrelated outsiders who belonged to different matricians.

   1981, Roger M. Keesing, Cultural Anthropology: A Contemporary Perspective, Holt McDougal

comparative more matrician · superlative most matrician

1. Upper class and matriarchal

   Quinn could only smile at the old dame's manner. Just as Connie had told him, she was immediately reigning over everything with matrician authority.

   2012, Meagan McKinney, The Lawman Meets His Bride, Harlequin, →ISBN

   2 more examples

   Forfend that her stern shade ever resent a comparison with such frail creatures ! She carries the historic ' prowde countenance of the Geraldines ' of her day. Aristocratic, matrician, and placid, though deeply traced with sorrow

   1853, The Quarterly Review, page 353

   Her father is a successful businessman and her rather forceful mother a philosophy don; and Florence's life in a matrician and intellectual North Oxford household - you feel sure it's in one of those substantial brick crescents next to the Parks - is vivid in its intricate particularity.

   2007, John Lehmann, Alan Ross, London Magazine

plural matricians

1. A mathematician who studies matrices

   It is quite apparent why a matrician missed this generalization, because his creed is to build from low-order matrices high-order arrays.

   1940, Electrical Engineering

   1 more example

   The study of the pencil is helpful not only to matricians for a more efficient calculation of the eigenvalues and eigenvectors, but also to control theorists for the analysis and design of their control systems.

   2007, Ky M. Vu, The ARIMA and VARIMA Time Series: Their Modelings, Analyses and Applications, AuLac Technologies Inc., →ISBN, page 462

1. not comparablePertaining to matrices

   A matrician method (method of nodal displacement) allows to obtain directly the stiffness matrix and the center of motion.

   1983, Brian Rooks, Developments in Robotics, 1983, →ISBN

   1 more example

   For the j-circle method a convenient and comprehensive book is that by Kuske where the interested reader will find all the detail but it is not presented with a matrician calculus.

   1979, G. S. Holister, Developments in Stress Analysis--1, Elsevier Science & Technology